*A Pro Wrestling Opinion Exclusive* Check out Nick’s interview with Luke Roberts from Dynamo Pro Wrestling as he calls in to give fans an update on the promotion’s “March Mayhem” show in two weeks on Saturday, Mar. 31, runs down the card and what may happen come April. Watch […]

“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.

(Aired 8/25/16)

Turning Point 2016

– It was time for another “Pay-Per-View Themed” edition of Impact, this one labeled “Turning Point.” The opening video highlighted the biggest story headed in – a battle between Ethan Carter III and Drew Galloway where EC3 put his TNA World Heavyweight Championship Title shot at Bound For Glory on the line to settle this recent score with Galloway on this show. Another twist was Aron Rex, as he announced himself as Special Guest Referee to keep things fair. Also hyped was a “Summit” segment between Galloway/EC3 where they shared a whiskey bottle by a pool and shot the breeze about their recent quarrels. That was still to come, but we liked that they opened with the main event stuff.

– The TNA World Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender’s Battle Royale between Jessie Godderz, Robbie E, Eli Drake, Baron Dax, Basile Baraka, Grado, Mahabali Shera, The Miracle, Moose and Eddie Edwards with TNA World Heavyweight Champion Lashley on commentary was good in terms of Lashley’s dominant ringside presence without physicality, as he backed The Pope away from the commentary booth to criticize mostly everybody in the match and again insulted the TNA King Of The Mountain Championship as “trash.” Interestingly, he praised Godderz and The Miracle while he also addressed comparisons to Moose. We found it a bit odd competition for the World Title lied in the form of tag team wrestlers and jobbers, but it was necessary to fill the scene. Lashley’s bold confidence was great and Edwards put up a late flurry before he was outdone by Moose, who was then outdone by Miracle. We liked the twist that Miracle used Moose to get to the end and then eliminated him the first shot he got. On top of that, we’d finally get this Miracle-Lashley Title match and a possible reason for Moose to turn on Miracle based on his actions here. If you were Moose, you’d be pissed too.

– The backstage segment with Moose, Miracle and Maria was good follow-up in that we saw Moose yell at Miracle, who tried to point the blame on Edwards to no avail. Maria did her job in backing the cameraman out to keep things private, but it was apparent the cracks were starting to show.

– If this episode was an indication of things to come, then the feud between TNA World Tag Team Champions Decay and “Broken” Matt Hardy/Brother Nero should be entertaining as hell. The in-ring segment with the two teams was a good introduction, as the reason Matt targeted Decay was for what they possessed – the belts. At the same time, we still had Nero needing to prove himself to his “Broken” brother that he was still worthy. The “Obsolete” entrance was much over with the fans. Hell, we almost wanted to shout, “Obsolete!” with them. Decay’s portion of the promo was decent, as they tried to intimidate the Hardys from all sides of the arena with the message that they wouldn’t obey Matt’s orders and looked forward to destroying what was left of the Hardy legacy. It ended up leading to a Nero-Abyss match when Abyss goaded Jeff into it as he called him a “broken son of a bitch.”

– The Nero-Abyss match won’t win a “Match Of The Year” candidate by any means, but it was highly entertaining in the scope of the Hardys-Decay storyline. You had shades of Nero sort of still disobeying Matt’s commands to “fight with honor” (not using Swanton Bombs) and that in turn, allowed Rosemary to spew the mist and send Jeff into Black Hole Slam oblivion. We can’t ignore that botched dive off the top rope onto Crazzy Steve, but at least commentary tried to cover it well. We liked the development because it gave Decay an advantage headed into next week. Matt did crazy Matt things like bite Steve upon the announcement that it was him that tried to abduct King Maxel in his premonition. Matt’s urges for Nero to “embrace the broken” leaves us slightly intrigued for next week.

– The backstage segment with Maria, Allie, TNA Knockouts Champion Sienna and TNA President Billy Corgan hyped the upcoming Five-Way Title match as a way of Corgan getting one back on Maria when she tried to assert her power behind Corgan’s back when she didn’t know he was the one who put the match together to begin with. Corgan was a little better on the mic here, but that didn’t say much. Also continued was Maria’s berating of poor oblivious Allie.

– The backstage segment with Lashley and Miracle hyped their Title match for next week as Lashley threw some mental shade towards Miracle for always needing help to win matches and questioned Moose’s intentions.

– The TNA Knockouts Championship Five-Way match between Champion Sienna, Marti Bell, Madison Rayne, Allie and Jade was basically everybody in the Division that wasn’t Gail Kim all for the purpose of stacking the deck against Sienna. The usual occurred – Bell/Jade fought some more because that’s what they do and Maria came down to ringside to ensure things went well. You wouldn’t had known it with the dead crowd, but Allie’s comedy spots were actually pretty funny, as she tried to pull off a double-team suplex with Sienna while facing the wrong direction and tested out stomps on Bell. The action was pretty sloppy to be honest, but we found the finish to be entertaining in that Allie’s own obliviousness actually won her the KO Title when she accidentally floored Sienna with Bell’s baton that she wrestled out of her hands via tug of war and ended up laid out across Rayne with her shoulders down. The crowd dug this moment, so it appeared to pay off well. It also added a nice twist in that Allie’s win would likely piss off Maria. Sienna did a good job as the fearsome Champ, but losing to Kim inevitably wouldn’t had necessarily been the best route.

– Rex’s backstage promo set forward main event hype as he promised to keep things fair because that’s why he was in TNA and claimed he knew both men well and said it’d “be a good one.”

– Another “Fixer” hype video aired, which left us to wonder when he’d ever come back or just what he’d do.

– TNA Knockouts Champion Allie’s backstage promo sold her own shock to have the belt after coming to work as Maria’s apprentice, before she flinched upon the thought of what Maria might do when she asked by the cameraman. Allie’s character is adorable.

– The “Summit” video package with EC3 and Galloway was a noble hype concept to build up to the Galloway-EC3 match, even if they didn’t say anything we didn’t already know. It was a good method to catch some fans up on why the match was happening though. We didn’t take the pool shove by Galloway all too seriously.

– The Moose-Lashley interaction in the parking lot set up more questions for next week’s Title match, as it appeared Lashley wanted to “recruit” Moose and invited him down to a dinner to chat about his future.

– The “Fact Of Life” in-ring segment with Drake, Trevor Lee, Andrew Everett, Braxton Sutter, DJZ, Mandrews and Rockstar Spud was a fairly weak attempt to draw some hype for next week’s Ultimate X match to crown a new TNA X-Division Champion. It would’ve been more effective if it wasn’t the same guys competing in the same matches over the same belt. It gets tiresome for sure. Drake tried his best to shake things up like his character likes to do, but it wasn’t like he himself was a part of next week’s match, so what exactly did he get out of it? The noteworthy moments were Spud’s promo where he criticized all his opponents as losers (his line to Everett/Lee being losers based out of being from North Carolina alone made us laugh) and DJZ’s amped message to Lashley that somebody would one day beat him. We wonder if the action breaking down somehow hinted towards the start of a Drake-DJZ feud over the belt, but obviously, DJZ needs to win the belt first. Maybe Drake gets involved next week?

– The Galloway-EC3 main event to decide the challenger for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship at Bound For Glory with Aron Rex as Special Guest Referee was alright in terms of action, but never quite got to the level we expected it to go. At least they kept the overbooking out of it and had Rex call it straight down the middle. Galloway’s celtic cross on the step steps was cringe-worthy. We expected some better laid out near-falls to build drama, not to have it end on a flimsy bridge pin, but EC3 going over made sense from the get-go, but the tease of him losing it to Galloway was enough to fill a week. Plus, it set up the post-match turn angle from Galloway as he senselessly attacked “good guy” Rex and kindly bashed his head against the steel steps. It made sense since you could argue that Galloway was sent “over the edge” and with EC3 obviously busy at BFG with Lashley, this gave both Galloway and Rex something to do at BFG themselves. We were curious why EC3 never came out to make the save, but they could cover that next week.

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About Nicholas Jason Lopez

Just a 25 year-old Brooklynite. Nothing more, nothing less.
Currently Freelancing for The Bensonhurst Bean website in Brooklyn, he has also been published on sites such as Review Fix, College University of New York Athletic Conference, Dying Scene, Brooklyn News Service, All Media NY, BrooklynFans.com and Yahoo Voices.
He has also interned for The Home Reporter/Brooklyn Spectator based out of Brooklyn, NY.